Rubio says legal immigration system is broken and ignores skills U.S. needs

On the Senate floor on Tuesday, Rubio said the nation’s immigration system is failing and needs to be modernized.

"The problem is we have a broken legal immigration system," Rubio, a Miami Republican, said. "The result is even if we didn’t have a single illegal immigrant in the United States, we should be on the floor of the Senate debating immigration reform, because we must modernize out legal immigration system."

Rubio said the current system often values whether someone has a relative in the nation first over whatever skill a potential immigrant might offer to the nation.

"We don’t have a merit based system, we have a family based system," Rubio said.

Rubio also fired back at critics that say the immigration reform will lead to amnesty. Rubio repeated his assertion that the nation already as a form of amnesty because it is doing nothing to deal with the estimated 11 million undocumented people here today. He said the immigration reform bill, which he worked on as a member of the so-called Gang of Eight, includes tough border security improvements and the implementation of E-Verify to stop employers from hiring illegal immigrants.

As serious as immigration reform is, Rubio did shoe-horn in a part about his beloved Miami Heat, who are playing in the NBA finals against the San Antonio Spurs.

About five minutes into his speech, Rubio sounded like a sportscaster in noting the NBA finals are going on, "...which by the way the Miami Heat won game 2 in resounding fashion."

It should be noted that one of Rubio's biggest critics on immigration has been Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican.

Check out Rubio’s full speech here. It is 25 minutes, but really acts as a good catch-up to where immigration reform is right now and why he’s so involved.

Jeremy Wallace

Jeremy Wallace has covered politics for more than 15 years.
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Last modified: June 11, 2013
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